“Never hire a Harvard Business School grad until they fail at least once,” he advised me. You see, he taught there. Filled his life with books, movies. Jewish intellectual, author, psychiatrist to rock-stars, advisor to top CEO’s. Atheist. And you know, when staring into the abyss, that’s a damn hard thing to admit. But he did. Proud. Self made. Stubbornly independent to a fault. A lover of puzzles, excelling in War

What a freakin’ circus. Spotlights swung wildly. Skinny little Obama, shouldering a $15trln economy, stood frozen high on the wire, looking right, left, but mostly down. Far below, Bernanke frantically inflated his leaky whoopee cushion (not a single trampoline remains). Some Fed clowns threw dung at Ben’s promise of 0% rates though mid-2013 (7-3 vote, most contentious since 1992). A Donkey fled, chased by Michele Ba

Hope all goes well. What a freakin’ circus. Spotlights swung wildly. Skinny little Obama, shouldering a $15trln economy, stood frozen high on the wire, looking right, left, but mostly down. Far below, Bernanke frantically inflated his leaky whoopee cushion (not a single trampoline remains). Some Fed clowns threw dung at Ben’s promise of 0% rates though mid-2013 (7-3 vote, most contentious since 1992). A Donkey fled,

We didn’t mean it! Seriously. Lord, when we said we just wanted to get through the debt ceiling, and wouldn’t ask for anything ever again, we were kinda kidding. It was sick mkt humor. We thought you know everything, woulda gotten the joke. Anyhow, if you answer this final prayer, that’ll be it, we’ll never get ourselves into this kinda mess again. We’ll be better people too. We swear. So here goes… Please let the ec

One of my boys has never tasted blood. But he’s so smart, engineer, MBA. 35yrs old, great wife, few kids. His company’s transforming our world. But he’s feeling restless. You see, his boss sucks. Yeah, that happens. Even in Silicon Valley. So we had dinner. Turns out he saw a life-coach who asked what work he’d do to find harmony with just 2yrs to live. I laughed, I mean how f’in California is that? Told him I’d buy

Hope all goes well. Snuck up to our family homestead in NorCal. It’s a farm. The kinda place you go to chill when things are real good, or hole-up when things get real bad. Tempting as it is to stock it with shot-guns, Jack Daniels and baked beans, we’re pretty calm. No one ever built a fortune by succumbing to panic. But no doubt, gears of change are in motion, exciting times lay ahead, big opportunities, risks too.

Hope all goes well. I woke in a sweat. 4am. Nightmare. Happens sometimes. Won’t bore you with details; basically, I’m afraid of time. Granddad dropped at 53. That gives me 9 more yrs. Got so much left to do. But at least July moved real slow. Felt like I lived a lifetime – France, Switz, Chamonix, Seqouia Forest, Euro crisis, US crisis. Overall: See the news? You musta. Jihadists clashed with centrist Peacekeep

The German Shepherd, a fearsome beast, terrifying combination of nature/nurture. Man has others. The Market is frightening, capricious – your friend one moment, a wildly destructive Mob the next. And once unleashed, both beasts are nearly impossible to restrain. Anyhow, cops train German Shepherds in a remote field near my house. So I watch. Here’s how it goes down: 8 cops, 8 dogs, 900sq/yd field, 10ft steel fe

See the news? You musta. Jihadists clashed with centrist Peacekeepers in Somalia. That poor nation simmers, suffering its worst drought in 60yrs, the worst famine in twenty. 2mm souls are starving. Foreigners send billions in food aid. But radical ideology, greed, corruption, posturing – ya know, politics – has gotten in the way. In 3rd world nations, that kinda stuff kills economic growth (children too). Good thing

Damn bro. What a ride, a white knuckler. Things almost changed. We narrowly avoided a paradigm shift. Gang of Six tax/fiscal plan was embraced by everyone but Congressional jihadists – what would we have done with sensible tax reform, lower deficits? And Europe nearly failed to save Greece and contain Italy’s fiscal implosion – what would Europe do when faced with true existential crisis? Someday we’ll find out. But